PG, 140mins

In Hollywood it took Tom Hanks to bring the AIDS issue to the forefront. In Bollywood terms, the glory belongs to Shilpa Shetty. Phir Milenge is a worthy attempt by the Mumbai industry to address a still taboo topic in the widest commercial context with three major stars - Shetty, Salman Khan, Abhishek Bachchan - and some catchy tunes.

Shetty plays Tamanna, a modern advertising executive who has a brief fling at her high school reunion with the hunky Khan. Sometime later, following a routine blood test, she is diagnosed with the HIV virus. When her status becomes public knowledge, she is promptly fired from her job and is ostracized from society. She fights back by suing her employer for unfair dismissal. Her major hurdle , however, is in finding a lawyer who will represent her.

Yes, it is the Bollywood version of Philadelphia, the Hollywood movie starring Hanks and Denzel Washington, with the gay angle conveniently ignored, but this is still a brave piece of political Indian cinema from female director Revathy.

The film exposes the inadequacy of existing anti-discrimination law in India and the bigotry faced by people with the disease . There are some rough edges: it is obviously low on budget, the songs do interrupt the narrative, it is still too long and Khan 's performance is poor.

But Shetty holds it all together with the best performance of her career, bar this week's Big Brother . Unlike all her other roles in the churn 'em out song and dance genre known as "masala movies" where she simply has to look gorgeous and shake a leg, Shetty shows an impressive flair for parts that demand gravitas. This is a star turn in a film marked with a tone of restraint, and anger.

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